Tim Biggs

In a conference that seemed to move from strength to strength, Sony kicked off its E3 by reconfirming its commitment to indie titles while also highlighting big things on the horizon for PlayStation 4.

The company revealed thatGrand Theft Auto V will join The Last of Us in coming to PS4 in a graphically updated format later this year. The games were two of the most popular last year, and Sony says it will sweeten the pot for players who haven't yet bought a PS4 by allowing them to transfer their games from the PS3 or Xbox 360 version of GTA V to the new version.

To set everybody's mind at ease about the fate of one of their biggest franchises, Sony also revealed that Uncharted 4 will be coming to PS4 in 2015, with a short trailer showing Nathan Drake in a nightmarish jungle filled with caged skeletons. The game will be subtitled A Thief's End, possibly indicating that this troubled entry in the beloved series will also be the last.

In one of the less-predictable moves, and despite flat-out denying they would be appearing at E3, UK studio Media Molecule’s hugely-popular heshen mascot Sackboy appeared on-stage as an anonymous group of British people (possibly not from Media Molecule) announced and demonstrated LittleBigPlanet 3, the first console game in the series since 2011.

The new entry will feature a strong emphasis on co-operative play while still keeping community creations at its core. The demo revealed the ability to play as something other than a sackperson for the first time, introducing a trio of new characters – including a wall-jumping dog named Oddsock, a bird called Swoop and the shape-shifting Toggle.

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A new trailer for the PS4-exclusive game The Order: 1886 (recently pushed back to 2015) shed light on the nature of the enemies players will fight in this neo-Victorian steampunk shooter. The part-zombie, part-werewolf creature is very different in style compared to everything Sony's shown of the game so far. Meanwhile a new trailer showed off upcoming content for Sucker Punch's hit Infamous: Second Son, called First Light and featuring the side-character Fetch.

The previously-leaked "Project Beast" turned out not to be a new entry in From Software’s Dark Souls series, but rather a completely new game from the developer called Bloodborne, which will come exclusively to PS4 in 2015.

Bungie chose Sony’s conference as the place to finally blow the lid almost completely off its upcoming Destiny, which is starting to bear no small resemblance to the studio’s last smash hit series Halo. The game will be coming first to PlayStation 4, and will launch alongside a (presumably limited) white version of the console.

After being introduced earlier via a cinematic trailer at the Ubisoft conference, Far Cry 4 also made an appearance during Sony’s conference in the form of a much longer gameplay demo, showing off everything from grappling up snow-capped mountains with a hook, to avoiding (or not) a treacherous avalanche in a buggy, to leading an assault on an enemy compound in a gyrocopter. PlayStation gamers will be able to invite their friends to play Far Cry 4 with them even if those friends don’t own the game.

Exclusive looks at non-Sony games continued with the unveiling via trailer of the ludicrously violent Dead Island 2 and Mortal Kombat X, a new trailer for Battlefield: Hardline, a teaser for grindhouse weirdo Suda51’s new title Let it Die, an extended trailer for Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain and a huge trailer for Batman: Arkham Knight, another game that was recently pushed back to next year.

Earlier on in the presentation, Sony had attempted to reaffirm its commitment to bringing indie, artisan and experimental games to its console, unveiling Pixel Opus' first game Entwined (a vibrantly-coloured rhythm game), and Giant Squid’s super-stylised underwater exploration game Abzu.

Sony even gave a significant chunk of time to No Man’s Sky, the incredibly ambitious online game from the tiny team at Hello Games, which they claim will feature a literally infinite sc-fi universe for players to explore and collaborate in.

The company continued its charge to bring a wide audience to PS4 with the announcement that small-game publisher Devolver and traditionally PC-focused Paradox Interactive are developing games for PS4, including Hotline Miami: Wrong Number and Magicka 2 respectively. A further nod to old PC fans came in the news that cult hit Grim Fandango is being completely remade for PS4.

Sony mentioned its in-development virtual reality headset Morpheus only in passing, saying it would be on the show floor of E3 this week for media and gamers to try. Their handheld system, PlayStation Vita, was all-but ignored except to say that Minecraft, Tales of Hearts R, Child of Light and Tales from Borderlands are on their way to the device.